Reflect: Allow to override the type name

[jcornaz]

What problem does this solve or what need does it fill?

As a plugin author I publish components and implement Reflect for them so that the consumers of my plugin can use them in serialized scenes.

Theses components may live in private modules and be re-exported from a parent module like this:

mod my_private_module {
  #[derive(Debug, Copy, Clone, Default, Component, Reflect]
  #[reflect(Component)]
  pub struct AwesomeComponent;
}

// Expose the component without the user knowing about `my_private_module`
pub use my_private_module::AwesomeComponent;

This as the advantage that moving the component to another module or rename/move the module is not a breaking change for the consumers of my library.

But when serialized via bevy's reflection system, it exposes the real path of the component. So moving my Component is now a breaking change. And that's annoying.

What solution would you like?

I would like to be able to choose (hard-code) the path of my components. Maybe like this:

#[derive(Debug, Copy, Clone, Default, Component, Reflect]
#[reflect(Component)]
#[reflect(rename = "myplugin::AwesomeComponent")] // <-- Choose a type name
pub struct AwesomeComponent;;

What alternative(s) have you considered?

I could not move my components (annoying for me). Or I could publish a breaking change (annoying for my users).

Additional context

Serde has a somewhat similar feature:

• https://serde.rs/container-attrs.html#rename,
• https://serde.rs/variant-attrs.html#rename

[MrGVSV]

Would this be resolved by either #5805 or #5830?

[jcornaz]

Yes, I think #5805 would solve it. (If I understood well 😄)

[nakedible]

@alice-i-cecile I think this is solved now?

[alice-i-cecile]

Agreed.